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en-usTechdirt. Stories filed under "coverup"https://ii.techdirt.com/s/t/i/td-88x31.gifhttps://www.techdirt.com/Fri, 19 Sep 2014 05:51:39 PDTNew Zealand Whistleblower Reveals He Was Told To 'Bury' Unflattering Info About The Gov't Spying On DotcomMike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140918/17020328567/new-zealand-whistleblower-reveals-he-was-told-to-bury-unflattering-info-about-govt-spying-dotcom.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140918/17020328567/new-zealand-whistleblower-reveals-he-was-told-to-bury-unflattering-info-about-govt-spying-dotcom.shtmlmonumentally questionable the whole thing was. Frankly, I have no idea if what Dotcom did with Megaupload broke the law, but the indictment against him was filled with really questionable claims, the GCSB (local equivalent of the NSA) illegally spied on Dotcom and then deleted the evidence, the police sought to suppress images of the raid itself, and evidence was mishandled. Oh, and it was eventually revealed that customs officials agreed to share info on Dotcom with the FBI in the US to "buy... brownie points" with the FBI.

And, now a former high-ranking New Zealand Customs lawyer has said that he quit his job after he was ordered to "bury" information that made the New Zealand government look bad. Specifically, this is about that last point above -- the letter concerning the brownie points. Apparently, the New Zealand government didn't want that email to get out, despite it being required to be released under a freedom of information request (in New Zealand it's the Official Information Act). Curtis Gregorash, a lawyer in the Customs department was told directly not to release any such documents:

"Mr Taylor directed me to withhold all information and pass the same direction on to my team."

He said he was subjected to an internal investigation after releasing information about Dotcom sought by the NZ Herald through the Official Information Act. The information released saw Customs staff discuss earning "brownie points" by passing on Dotcom information to the FBI.

"Simpson Grierson [Dotcom's lawyers] had made several Privacy Act requests of the Government, some of which flowed through Customs, and decisions were made from ministerial level with Maurice Williamson directing Customs, 'Don't you dare release anything - nothing at all.'"

Gregorash apparently disobeyed these orders and released the "brownie points" letter -- as required by law -- and then faced an internal investigation, leading to him resigning in protest.

The "brownie points" OIA release to the Herald was the tipping point. "I got dragged over the coals for it. There was an investigation into me. I was cleared. I resigned after that."

He also seems to indicate that other documents that should have been released were withheld as well:

"All sorts of jokes and laughs and cut-downs that were being made by officials to each other were being withheld for [what he considered to be] no reason."

Gregorash had held onto the story for a while, but decided that it needed to be told.

Combined with everything else about this investigation and prosecution, it again makes you wonder what people were thinking. It still really feels like the DOJ and New Zealand officials all simply believed Hollywood's fanciful stories about Dotcom being "Dr. Evil" -- a cartoonish villain so bad that official and legal processes could be thrown out the window just to get him at any cost. Once again, it suggests that Hollywood and the DOJ officials who support it would be much better off actually taking the time to understand the nuances of the copyright debate, rather than their crude "piracy bad" level of understanding that they seem to have of it.

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]]>incrediblehttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20140918/17020328567Wed, 11 Sep 2013 14:57:00 PDTThai Airways Tries To Cover Logo On Crashed Plane, Gets Egg On Face InsteadTimothy Geignerhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130910/11173924470/thai-airways-tries-to-cover-logo-crashed-plane-gets-egg-face-instead.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130910/11173924470/thai-airways-tries-to-cover-logo-crashed-plane-gets-egg-face-instead.shtmlStreisand Effect for the way in which a group's inability to assume proper responsibility vaults their transgression into the limelight in a way it otherwise would not have, while simultaneously causing them to look petty, callous, or devious. The point is, as most of us adults have learned, that when you're caught doing something wrong your best bet is to readily accept the blame and begin working on rebuilding your brand. If you don't, you look like a jerk.

Speaking of which, Thai Airways is suddenly looking like a jerk. The airline seems to have a problem keeping the landing gear working on its planes as of late. After a crash in Hong Kong two weeks ago, another Thai Airways Airbus plane suffered faulty landing gear and injured 14 people when it skidded onto a Bangkok runway. Then, because apparently the company is run by junior high school children, they sent a crew out to the plane to hastily paint over the company logo on the tail-section, even as the rest of the plane was garbed in easy-to-identify company colors.

Today, the plane was seen resting on grass next to the runway with its evacuation slides still deployed and the Thai Airways name and logo hastily covered up.

The move to black-out the logo may have been a response to last night's incident coming less than two weeks after 20 passengers were injured when a Thai Airways flight hit severe turbulence as it was descending to Hong Kong's airport. Although the logo was unable to be seen, the plane's airline colours were unmistakable and easily compared to Thai Airways jets taking off or landing in the vicinity, which happens quite a bit in Bangkok.

If this all seems eerily familiar, it's because you used to pull this exact same move... when you were five years old. You know what I'm talking about: you're wrist deep in the chocolate cake mom cooked for your sister, she catches you in the act, and you put your hands over your eyes. Ah ha, problem solved! If you can't see her, she obviously can't see you!

Except it doesn't work like that of course and now the news is filled with reports of Thai Airways trying to shirk their responsibility for yet another crash with the kind of move Sesame Street teaches you not to pull. Enjoy that Streisanding, folks! Think about how many more people now know not to fly your planes!

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]]>the-cover-up-is-always-worse-than-the-crimehttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20130910/11173924470Mon, 21 Feb 2011 08:42:48 PSTUS Paid Millions For Bogus (Patented) Intelligence Software; Now Trying To Cover It Up Claiming 'National Security'Mike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110220/18583513178/us-paid-millions-bogus-patented-intelligence-software-now-trying-to-cover-it-up-claiming-national-security.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110220/18583513178/us-paid-millions-bogus-patented-intelligence-software-now-trying-to-cover-it-up-claiming-national-security.shtmland what appears to be a con man who conned them out of tens of millions of dollars that it's hard to know where to start, so let's break it down in sections:

Conned
First off, the crux of the story is that a guy named Dennis Montgomery seems to have concocted an elaborate con on the US government that worked for years. He created some software, supposedly originally designed to help colorize movies, but it was later pitched for its capability to (I'm not joking) read coded messages in the "crawl bar" on Al Jazeera which (it was claimed) provided clues to planned terrorist attacks. Various US government agencies basically kept handing over millions and millions of dollars to Mr. Montgomery and partners. Some of those former partners now admit that Montgomery's technology was a hoax, and his presentations included doctored videos and test results.

Known, but still purchasing
Next up, there's the news that the CIA figured all of this out way back in 2003 and knew the software was useless, but the government was still paying millions of dollars in new contracts for it and using the software at least until 2009, when it was supposedly used to "detect" Somali terrorist plans during Obama's inauguration -- terrorist plans that later turned out not to exist at all.

And, it wasn't just the CIA that had figured this out. The NY Times report notes that the media -- including reports from both Bloomberg and (of all places) Playboy -- had previously called out "hints of fraud by Mr. Montgomery." Separately, a Pentagon report notes that the government had paid an astounding $285 billion in just three years to contractors accused of fraud or wrongdoing.

Feeling safer?

Relied on the info to make big decisions
What's really scary is how much the government seemed to rely on bogus info from this system that the CIA knew didn't work. In one case, it actually caused an international incident:

In December 2003, Mr. Montgomery reported alarming news: hidden in the crawl bars broadcast by Al Jazeera, someone had planted information about specific American-bound flights from Britain, France and Mexico that were hijacking targets.

C.I.A. officials rushed the information to Mr. Bush, who ordered those flights to be turned around or grounded before they could enter American airspace.

"The intelligence people were telling us this was real and credible, and we had to do something to act on it," recalled Asa Hutchinson, who oversaw federal aviation safety at the time. Senior administration officials even talked about shooting down planes identified as targets because they feared that supposed hijackers would use the planes to attack the United States, according to a former senior intelligence official who was at a meeting where the idea was discussed. The official later called the idea of firing on the planes "crazy."

The French then conducted a study, and also concluded that the technology Mr. Montgomery used was a total hoax, and told the Bush administration, leading them to claim "we got played," though it didn't stop the federal government from continuing to buy the technology for at least another five years.

Oh, also there were no actual repercussions to this massive international incident. The guy at the CIA who had been one of the main supporters of the technology, Donald Kerr, got promoted after this. Another CIA official noted that not only was no one blamed for this massive misstep, but "they acted like it never happened."

FBI's improper search
In 2006, the FBI began investigating things, after Mr. Montgomery and his then business partner had a dispute and split up. There were claims that Montgomery had illegally copied data from the company when he left, and it was during this investigation that employees apparently told the FBI that "Montgomery had manipulated tests in demonstrations with military officials to make it appear that his video recognition software had worked." So, once again, the government discovered the hoax... but, the whole investigation was dropped after a court determined that the FBI screwed up by conducting "an improper search" of Montgomery's home. So the technology lived on, and was still being purchased and used by government agencies.

Patenting software that doesn't work
Oh yeah, did we mention that Montgomery "patented" this apparent hoax of a technology? The NY Times mentions this in passing. In doing a quick search, I've turned up a bunch of differentpatents from Montgomery and others who worked with him.

Nice to see that you can patent fraudulent systems, huh?

Cover up
Oh yeah, the biggest point in all of this is that the Federal government is working over time to cover this entire story up. It still hasn't admitted to any of this. It hasn't taken Montgomery to court at all (he's facing other legal problems related to passing bad checks at casinos). However, the Justice Department is apparently working overtime to keep this story totally secret:

The Justice Department, which in the last few months has gotten protective orders from two federal judges keeping details of the technology out of court, says it is guarding state secrets that would threaten national security if disclosed. But others involved in the case say that what the government is trying to avoid is public embarrassment over evidence that Mr. Montgomery bamboozled federal officials.

Once again, it appears the government is using secrecy and totally bogus claims of "national security" to hide embarrassing details, rather than for any legitimate reason. This is an unfortunate result of giving the government too much power to declare things as "secret" with little to no oversight. It clearly will abuse that power to hide mistakes, rather than admit them and maybe even learn from them. Instead, we allow a con artist to cost tax payers tens of millions of dollars, and then the government tries to brush it all under the rug.

And, yes, all of this really should make you wonder about all of those claims from politicians supporting the renewals on the Patriot Act and other such legislation, who claim that the government has protected us from multiple terrorist attack attempts. While I'm sure there have been some attempts, it does make you wonder how many such "thwarted" attempts included the ones that were apparently totally made up by Montgomery.